The 3 agents I'd start with if I were you

We get the question constantly from new Avery NXR users: "Of the 7 templates, which one should I start with?"

The honest answer is "it depends on your situation." But there's a 3-agent starter pack that works for almost everyone in a knowledge-work job. The pack is designed so that within one week, you've felt three different kinds of value from agents — and you know whether the platform is worth investing more in.

Here are the three, in the order I'd configure them.

Agent 1: Sophia — meeting follow-ups

Why first: Every knowledge worker has too many meetings. The follow-ups don't happen reliably. Action items get forgotten. The pain is immediate, recurring, and shared.

What it does: After every meeting, Sophia reads the transcript (Zoom, Google Meet, etc.) and sends each attendee a personalized email within 60 seconds. Different emails per person, based on what they specifically committed to and what action items belong to them.

Setup time: 15 minutes. Connect Gmail (OAuth), connect your transcript source, configure the email template, set the trigger.

When you feel the value: Tuesday morning after your Monday meetings. The follow-ups you'd normally be drafting are already sent. The thank-you replies start landing in your inbox. Action items get done because everyone got reminded.

Why this teaches you the most: Sophia is the closest thing to an instant productivity replacement. The before/after is dramatic. Within a week, you can't imagine going back. This sets the baseline expectation for what agents can do.

Agent 2: Carlos — daily pipeline / inbox / KPI digest

Why second: Most knowledge workers spend 30-60 min/morning catching up on what happened overnight. Pipeline status, email triage, dashboard checks. Carlos absorbs that into a single morning email.

What it does: At 7 AM (or whenever your morning starts), Carlos pulls from your data sources (HubSpot, Linear, GitHub, analytics, etc.), identifies what needs your attention, and sends you a personalized morning digest.

Setup time: 15-20 minutes. Connect your data sources, configure send time, define what "needs attention" means (stalled deals, slipping projects, anomalous metrics).

When you feel the value: Wednesday morning. You read Carlos's digest in 5 minutes. You know what's going on. You start real work by 7:45 AM instead of 9:00 AM. The hour of catch-up is gone.

Why this teaches you the most: Carlos demonstrates the "agent runs while you sleep" pattern. The work that used to be your morning reactive cycle is already done when you wake up. Mornings become proactive instead of reactive.

Agent 3: Anna — daily news + competitor digest

Why third: This is the agent that gets you off Twitter in the morning. Knowledge workers spend significant time scrolling for industry awareness. Most of it is noise. Anna filters the signal.

What it does: Reads from 15-25 sources you specify (HN, TC, arXiv, industry Substacks, competitor blogs, key X accounts), filters by your interests, drafts a personalized digest. Delivered at your chosen morning time.

Setup time: 20-25 minutes. Most of the time is curating which sources to monitor. The rest is automatic.

When you feel the value: End of week one. You haven't opened Twitter in the morning since Anna started running. Your industry awareness is BETTER, not worse, because Anna covers sources you wouldn't have remembered to check. The compulsion to scroll is broken.

Why this teaches you the most: Anna demonstrates the "agent replaces a HABIT" pattern. Habits are harder to change than tasks. When an agent replaces a habit cleanly, you know the platform can absorb real parts of your life, not just your work.

What you've learned after one week

By end of week one with these three agents, you know:

→ Agents can replace a TASK (Sophia: meeting follow-ups) → Agents can replace a ROUTINE (Carlos: morning catch-up) → Agents can replace a HABIT (Anna: industry scrolling)

Those three categories cover most of the operational work in a knowledge worker's life. The starter pack proves the platform across all three.

What I'd configure in week 2-3

After the starter pack, the next-most-valuable agents depend on your role:

If you're a hiring manager: Marcus (resume screening). Payback in week 1 (see post 170).

If you're in customer support / success: Priya (ticket triage). Payback by week 3 from auto-resolved FAQs.

If you're in marketing / competitive intel: Yuki (competitor monitoring). Payback by month 1 from first actionable catch.

If you're on engineering / DevOps: Liam (server health). Payback whenever the first auto-remediated incident saves you a wake-up.

These are all in the pre-loaded template library. Configuration follows the same pattern as the starter pack.

Common mistakes to avoid in week 1

Don't try to build a custom agent first. Templates are pre-loaded because they're the highest-confidence starting points. Custom agents come in week 3+, after you understand the platform.

Don't try to do all 7 templates in week 1. You'll lose focus and not feel the value of any one deeply. Three is the right number.

Don't skip the "feel the value" step. Configure the agent, then actually USE its output for a week. The proof comes from the lived experience, not the demo.

Don't try to perfect the configuration. First-pass configuration is fine. You'll tune in week 2. Trying to perfect day 1 just delays the learning.

The progression after the starter pack

If the starter pack works for you (it does for ~80% of users we've watched), the natural progression is:

→ Week 2: Add the role-specific template (Marcus / Priya / Yuki / Liam depending on what you do).

→ Week 3-4: Build first custom agent. Start with a specific recurring task you do that the templates don't cover.

→ Month 2: Add second and third custom agents. Start chaining (agent A triggers agent B).

→ Month 3: Consider sharing agents with teammates if you're not already on a multi-user plan.

By month 3 you'll have 6-12 agents running. The platform is part of your workflow.

Why we don't sell the platform on the full template library

When prospects ask "what does Avery NXR do," we used to enumerate the 7 templates and the 63 connectors and the 59 capabilities.

We've stopped doing that. It's too much.

The new pitch: "Configure three agents — Sophia, Carlos, Anna — in one week. They'll handle meeting follow-ups, morning catch-up, and industry awareness. You'll know in 7 days whether the platform is worth investing in."

The reduced scope makes the value clearer. The starter pack does the demo work.

Try the starter pack

If you've installed Avery NXR but haven't built anything yet, this is your assignment:

→ Today: Configure Sophia. Run it for one meeting. → Day 2-3: Configure Carlos. Run it for two mornings. → Day 4-7: Configure Anna. Run it daily.

By next weekend, you'll know whether to keep going.

→ avery.software — Free Desktop tier. Templates pre-loaded. The starter pack is ready.